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A large-scale forest fire is impacting the Ojito de Agua area in the Alejandro de Humboldt National Park, located in the municipality of Yateras, Guantánamo, according to information released this Wednesday.
The fire has consumed around 200 hectares of forest in that protected area and, as of this morning, it has not been brought under control, causing alarm among authorities and local residents, reported journalist Miguel Reyes on social media.
Personnel from the Forest Rangers, the Red Cross of Yateras, the Ministry of the Interior, and other organizations are working on the firefighting efforts, under conditions described by the reporter as "very complex," in order to halt the advance of the flames and protect a region known for its extraordinary biodiversity.
Members of the operation revealed that they covered 16 kilometers of affected terrain, where a large part of the vegetation was devastated.
Reyes pointed out that the possibility is being investigated that the disaster may have been caused by human action, presumably linked to illegal gold mining in the area. So far, there is no official confirmation regarding the origin of the fire, he stated.
That hypothesis has concrete precedents: in September 2025, the People's Municipal Court of Yateras sentenced five citizens to prison terms ranging from one year and six months to two years and seven months for the illegal extraction of gold in the Piedra la Vela area, along the banks of the Toa River, within the park itself.
Illegal mining has become widespread in eastern Cuba over the past decade, with estimates of up to 20,000 people searching for gold in that region.
The Alejandro de Humboldt National Park has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001 and is one of the tropical island sites with the highest biological diversity in the world. It covers 70,680 hectares between the provinces of Holguín and Guantánamo, and hosts more than 1,500 species of plants, over 905 of which are endemic to Cuba.
It is not the first time that fire has threatened this ecosystem. In April and May of 2021, the park experienced the largest fire in its history, with between 1,823 and 1,896 hectares destroyed, including hotspots in the same area of Ojito de Agua. In January 2024, another smaller fire was recorded in the localities of Tres Fiebres and Alto de Cruzata, within the park.
The current disaster is occurring during an active wildfire season in Cuba. Between January and April of this year, there were 111 wildfires in the country, resulting in 3,174 hectares affected. Guantánamo had not reported any wildfires during that period, making the incident in Humboldt Park the first recorded in the province in 2026.
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